


memories fill my mouth

by sandyk



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bisexual Peter Parker, Endgame fix it, F/M, Hydra Peter Parker, Peter Parker is Tony Stark's Biological Child, Peter dies briefly, consenting teens have sex with other consenting teens, inspired by angel the series season 4 and 5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:42:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 7
Words: 20,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28050345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sandyk/pseuds/sandyk
Summary: Peter discovers reality has been rewritten, specifically his. This life is so much better although May and MJ being the best is still a constant.
Relationships: May Parker (Spider-Man) & Peter Parker, Michelle Jones/Peter Parker, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 8
Kudos: 22
Collections: Marvel Big Bang 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: not mine, no profit garnered. Title and opening quote from Kristin Hersh's listerine. Part of the plot inspired by plots from angel the series seasons four and five. Signed, a big Connor fan. Thank you thank you A!!

Art courtesy of Weeping Naiad! Thank you so much!

_Scary memories fill my mouth_   
_How did I love a breaking thing?_   
_How did I sleep through a kidnapping?_

Heimdall is standing on the street right in front of Peter. Peter stops and catches his breath, he's been running a while. Indeterminate while. Whole morning, maybe. Peter blurts something, he doesn't know for sure what he says. He's having a morning. A whole lot of mornings happening. 

Three days earlier:

MJ is on Peter's bed which is always something he likes. It's a tiny little bunk bed and they're pressed close. It's barely room for one. He really likes that she's just in her bra and panties. She has soft cotton underwear. Her panties are neon orange, but a fuzzy orange like it's been worn down. Her bra is pastel yellow. Peter's wearing a very dull grey pair of boxer briefs. May shops at Macy's but she doesn't go high end. She buys them in packs. 

MJ scoots closer and they're skin to skin in a number of places. She smells like sage, something herbal. He says, "Is that sage?" That's about his level of brain power when she's so close. Maybe someday he'll get used to her being so near him but right now it's inconceivable. 

"Yes, it's a deodorant spray. Sublime sage. Isn't that the worst? The name is not good. But it's nice," MJ says. She licks her lips. He thinks maybe she's nervous, too. 

"It is nice. You're being so descriptive," he says. He drags his fingers across her stomach. She shivers a little. 

She covers her hand over his. She says, "We're not going to have sex. I mean not today. Please keep talking about your party with Thor."

"It was super cool. He was in a really good mood, even though I guess his whole planet exploded three or four months ago. But he was pretty chill," Peter says. "He seemed really happy that me and Tony were getting along. Like invested happy. Is that creepy?"

"Do you find Thor creepy? Usually you just have a hard on for him. Are you attracted to creeps?" She didn't have to reach far to cup his balls and his dick. Like he needs to think about Thor to get hard when MJ's here.

He smiles at her. "He wasn't creepy. He was just invested. Also, who doesn't have a hard-on for Thor? Name one."

"Not me. He's possibly the most attractive white person ever to exist," she says. "Aren't all the Asgardians hot as fuck? Is he the hottest of all the Asgardians?"

"Yeah, basically. Well, I don't know, Heimdall is breathtaking," Peter says. "It's okay if we don't have sex. Today. I really want to, though. If you want to."

"It'll be great," MJ says. "Two virgins doing it." She frowns and then her face is blank.

"It'll be awesome because I, because it's you. And even if the first time isn't awesome, the next time will be closer to awesome," Peter says. He touches the hem of her underwear, walks his fingers like a tightrope. She's so beautiful and she has perfect skin. She's so smart, too, brilliant. 

"I bet," she says. She watches him, he watches her and then they're kissing.

He could do that his whole life. They do more than kiss, but they don't have sex. Not yet, not today. Someday he thinks. He thinks about that more than he should. 

It's morning. May makes breakfast for herself and Peter and pokes at Peter with her wet spoon. Cereal and pared fruit wedges is a very filling breakfast. "You look happy," May says. "I like that look on you, mister."

"It's good," Peter says. He starts on his second bowl of cereal. 

"What?"

"Uh, things, things are good," Peter says. 

"I know it's been hard," May says. "With the Tony stuff. But you know what, there was no malice involved. No one. It's a good thing to hold on to." She sighs and smiles harder. "Everything's rolling along the way it will."

Peter says, "You know that makes no sense, right? Rolling along?" He shakes his head. "Just my mom cheating on my dad and getting knocked up and no one knew and they died and everyone got to find out in the worst way when I was fifteen. But no malice, right?" He smiles anyway.

"It's something. I'm trying. At least out of nowhere biological father makes sense more than radioactive spiders and cults and aliens," May says. "Go to school."

Peter gives her a side hug, kisses her cheek, says he loves her and leaves. Aunt May is the best, she never stops trying to make his life better. 

He walks by the empty apartment across the hall and like every single morning, he wonders why it's always empty. Someone should rent it, it's a nice place. 

Peter and Ned have lunch without really talking. Ned says, "You met Thor."

"You're still furious about that," Peter says. "I understand."

"Takes one second to call me," Ned says. "Facetime. To let me see Thor. I want to meet Thor, you know that. He's a literal god."

"Sorry," Peter says. "He's really attractive. I mean, he's a god. It's overwhelming."

"I have to be mad at you for another day," Ned says. 

"I can take that," Peter says. "It's really understandable."

He's having a pretty good day. Sometimes school is totally boring, but that's the grind. Birth, school, more school, save and help everyone, live on. Sometimes school is fascinating. It's nice that lots of people in his classes are as smart as he is. He and Abe talk for ten minutes about what went wrong with their chemistry lab work and how they could have made an excellent bomb. He'd never have his web fluid without the same kind of arguing and bouncing around ideas with Ned and Cindy. 

Peter goes to the compound and puts on his bravest face. He puts that one on a lot. Things are getting better. He's handling this transition, he can do it. It's not really disruptive to his life story. It's not a huge shake up. He's just Tony Stark's biological son. It's not a bad thing. 

Ned says his hero worship is now mixed up with anger and a kind of betrayal mocktail that comes out in weird emotional responses. Sure, he thinks. Weird emotional responses covers it. He hates making Tony feel bad. He really hates that he doesn't have anyone to be angry with. Theoretically he could be angry with his dead mother, but that feels useless. 

So he tries to be happy about everything which feels super fake. He loves being fake. 

Peter takes a deep breath. He goes to the training room first. Today it's just Cap and Wanda. Cool, Peter thinks, no holding back. Cap says to take off his webshooters. "It's good to be ready if you don't have them."

"Plus, unfair advantage against you, right?" 

Cap doesn't say Peter would lose either way, but it's right there in the twinkle of his eye. Peter is definitely going to lose when they fight hand to hand. Cap is bigger and he's fast, fast as Peter, and unlike Peter, spends his whole life on the beating things up tip. Peter only has his danger tingle, his higher vertical jump and his stickiness. He isn't used to using the stickiness for combat. 

Wanda does basic endurance and strength drills, rolling her eyes a lot. Peter showed her the Cap PSAs and she keeps trying to bait Cap to say the lines. It's about the only thing that makes a rowing machine for twenty minutes tolerable in Peter's opinion. 

Twenty minutes is the amount of time Peter spends almost losing against Cap in hand to hand. He's gotten a lot better, it used to be twenty minutes of completely losing. Now he can dodge better, he's getting at least two real hits in every time and today is the first day Captain America does not manage to so decisively lay the smackdown that Peter ends up flopped down on the ground. "Standing the whole time!" Peter throws his arms up. "Woo."

Cap claps and that sort of steals the joy. "That feels condescending," Peter says.

"It was," Cap says. 

Then they do a three way scrimmage, everyone for themselves, and Wanda sort of wins. She's getting better, too.

It's two hours of that - hand to hand, refining technique, getting pressed to the ceiling by Wanda's magic. Peter is actually exhausted and sweaty when they finish up. He takes a super quick shower and changes into chilling out clothes and then waits in the living room for Tony to show up. He's spending the night at the Compound. 

Wanda sits down next to him and changes the channel. "You weren't really watching that."

"I wasn't," Peter says, smiling. "FRIDAY, what's the ETA?"

"Mr. Stark will be here in thirty minutes. He's bringing food so don't order any."

Wanda says, staring at the screen, "I had the oddest dream. I've been having the oddest dream. Or not even a dream. I don't know. Have you ever had deja vu?"

Peter shrugs. "Actually, no. Not once. Is it like deja vu?"

"I don't know," Wanda says. "Sometimes I hear news and I remember how I reacted to it, part of me is thinking, yes, that was so sad. Or so good to hear. Or it is news, and then I have a sense, a feeling of what will happen next. Sometimes I have experiences and I remember the context, in my bones, as something else entirely. Something happened before and I was in a different place. I don't know."

Peter says, "Well, maybe it's the multiverse? Maybe you can see or feel other universes. The idea is that this universe is one of millions, billions, all slightly different, different rules. All occurring at the exact same time and not exactly the same space. You have those abilities, maybe you're perceiving things from a different universe. That would be cool." Peter exhales. It doesn't seem like Wanda looks at it the way Peter does. 

Peter adds, "Of course that's difficult to definitively prove, but I bet someone has. You know, like, maybe, parallel universes. There's a lot of theories out there. Some people theorize that every time you go left instead of right, a new universe is created where you went right but that's just infinite possibilities because, like, just your life alone would be billions of parallels created, and then in those parallel universes there would be new decision points and everyone else would have decision points, I don't quite see it. Maybe, though. But, whatever the creation point, I think there's solid evidence to theorize that we're not the only universe around and therefore, with your powers, you can maybe catch glimpses of a different one."

"That is less comforting than you think," Wanda says. 

"I just think it's totally cool," Peter says. "Really cool."

She shakes her head and doesn't look at him. She leaves for her own room before Tony comes home. Tony brings fancy food. It looks like medium rare steaks in strips and multicolored spice mash on top of some kind of vegetable that's deep green and very mushy. Also a salad like concoction in a bowl made of radishes. "The chef was pissed at me for not appreciating his plating, but I tipped enough he shut up."

Peter smiles. "They get really into plating on Top Chef. I bet this looked nice." He shrugs. 

"I bet it looked weird," Tony says. "We're not having the recommended pairing because I don't drink anymore and you're not legal to. Does May let you drink?"

"I have to stop before I black out, that's taken a while to figure out," Peter says, smiling. 

"You know what I meant. A sip of wine at home, when you're going straight to bed. It's how kids are generally raised in Europe. And that's not a so I've been told, that's the way my family would do it when we visited them," Tony says.

"Your family in Europe? I guess, our family. Where? Italy?" Peter should be interested. 

Tony shrugs. "My dad's family was mostly gone from over there, dead or in America. My mom's family was in Sanremo and Nice. Italy and France."

Peter nods. He doesn't have anything to add to that. He says, "Is this steak? Or lamb?"

"Waygu beef, very fancy. Do you not like it?" 

For a moment Tony looks incredibly insecure. Peter says, "No, I like it, it's good. It's really good." 

They talk awkwardly. Then, in the morning, Tony drives him to school. They also talk awkwardly. It's a relief to get to homeroom and be awkward with people his own age.

He's in his second to last class when he gets a quiet buzz from his wrist. That's not a good buzz. That's the Avengers need even you buzz. Peter coughs a lot while glancing down at his phone. Then he's coughing for real because it's a twenty foot alien mass with three arms all around the big pipe of a body. That's fantastic, Peter thinks. He gets out of class and starts to run towards the alien. He changes into his suit about a block away and swings up to the battle.

The novelty has absolutely worn off for Tony and Steve and Wanda. They're trying to battle the thing from all sides since it apparently has eye sensors all around the top of its head. Completely cool. Plus it makes it very hard to fight. There are no legs, it sort of oozes the wider base forward or gets pushed back. 

Peter stops gawking and gets to work. He follows Cap's hand signals and tries webbing the entire top of the Pipey to block its eye sensors. Everybody gets a few strikes in but then the sensors grow out underneath the webbing, like an ugly monk haircut. Peter tries webbing again but Pipey smacks Peter with some kind of club. It really hurts. Peter shakes it off.

Peter says, "Are we sure it's hostile? Maybe it's just misunderstood?"

"Not in this case," Tony says. He sends a video to Peter's suit. Pipey came in with two other Pipe aliens in a ugly spaceship that does not look aerodynamic at all. They landed on this roof and came out fighting. They've already managed to kill or subdue the two other Pipeys, their very ugly corpses are definitely broken on the ground. They're on the other side of the building from the side Peter came up. 

"Okay, these Pipettes are hostile."

Tony says, "Pipettes," like it's funny. Because it is. 

Pipey makes a low noise and then two of its arms slash tentacles reach out for Wanda. Cap tries to intercede but the thing just smacks him away. Iron Man and Peter both lunge forward while Wanda is firing red from both hands. 

It's not enough. A mouth like opening opens and suddenly it's like the thing is sucking red light from Wanda. She flails around, sending powerful bolts of magic flying around. One hits Peter smack in his head and he falls backward. 

He's falling.


	2. Chapter 2

Peter falls. Peter plummets. There's a hurricane in Peter's head. 

He's falling. 

Peter inhales. The building is racing up and Peter is racing to the bottom. No dying. He's not used to these things on his wrists. He fires out a web. It clings to the building. Peter is stopping, swinging towards the building. His knee hits first, it's painful. 

Live, to live is all that matters. He clings to the wall and climbs back up. 

His brain feels like a blender with something stuck in it. It's cascading. A kaleidoscope of what he remembers. 

He crawls over the edge and assesses. Alien shaped like a pipe, three arms slash tentacles, two with blunt objects, and one has what amounts to a sword. Only one side looks sharp. The alien is sucking energy or something from the woman. 

From Wanda. It's really only a few seconds. Peter's knee aches. He needs to think of what to do. Part of him knows what to do. What part, he thinks, since when is Peter communicating with some part of himself. He says, "Focus" to himself. 

Peter crouches low, ignores the pain from his swelling knee, moves silently and quickly to the back of the alien. The side not sucking. He jumps high, lands on top of the alien and angles himself down and towards the tentacle with the sword. 

Peter discovers he can stick to the alien's skin so he does, pulling up the tentacle until Peter reaches the hilt of the sword. He grabs the sword with one hand, then just pulls away from the alien while still sticking. The alien thrashes a little at the pain as its skin gets pulled off. Peter smiles and flicks away the skin. He jumps over with the sword and goes straight for the opening on the alien's trunk. The connection to Wanda breaks and the thing's own sword pushes in to its dense skin and pipe filling. Pipe filling, he thinks. 

Pipey falls over in a gross kind of splat sound. Sound evokes memory and that sound. He remembers a million things. 

Wanda rolls over and hugs herself, tries to stand up. She falters, stumbles, Steve and Peter already both have arms out to hold her up. She smiles and pushes both away. "Thank you, Peter. And Steve."

Peter looks over at Tony who is also slowly standing up. He taps the casing and his suit is gone. He's a tired old man in a sweatsuit. 

Peter runs over and helps Tony up. "Are you okay, Mr. Stark? Tony?"

"I'm good, buckaroo," Tony says. He looks at Peter, looks away, looks at him again. "Good work with that alien."

"Yeah," Peter says. "Pretty gross, huh?" He looks away. He needs to get away. He shouldn't be here.

He wasn't even supposed to be here, Peter thinks. Everyone is laughing in his head. Clerks is actually a pretty fun movie. 

He's watched it with MJ. In his apartment on his sofa, her practically on his lap, and she was talking about Kevin Smith and indie movies of the nineties and the unbearable whiteness of that particular movement. He was listening because it was distracting her from asking more questions about his father. He could maintain his fake story easily enough but he was increasingly ashamed of lying to MJ. He pulled her closer on his lap and she wiggled a little, laughing. He unbuttoned her jeans and she said, "We're watching this movie."

Peter thinks what the fuck?

"I've gotta go," he says to Tony. "I'm okay, I've gotta go home."

"Right," Tony says. "Makes sense." He pats Peter's arm and stops looking at him. Tired old man and his tired body. 

Peter jumps away and off the building. His head aches from the onslaught. 

Peter uses his webs to swing home. It still feels like torrential rain in his head. Over and over again. He starts to slip down to his apartment and then he remembers again. He lives with Aunt May. He sneaks into his room, where he lives with Aunt May. May Parker, his aunt who raised him. 

May Parker was a nice woman across the hallway. She always smiled when Peter came out of his apartment and asked how he was. Peter would smile back and ask after Ben. He genuinely liked the Parkers. She was his singular friend. Sometimes she beat him in Scrabble. 

Peter is in his room. He shakes off his suit and closes his bedroom door. May calls, "Peter, are you okay? School said you left early?"

Peter leans against the door. "I'm okay, May. It was the alien, I'm fine. I need to chill, though. I just need to sleep or something." His forehead is cold against the wood. He can't leave this room. He needs to keep her safe. 

"Are you sure you're okay? Did the alien bonk you?"

Peter says, "Yeah, I got bonked, and there was some accidental friendly fire. I just need to rest."

"You can come out and get a hug," May says.

Peter can't think of anything to say. He finally says, "I'm just really tired."

He steps out of his underwear and gets in his bed. It's a fucking tiny bed. Goddamn bunk bed like he's a baby or a toddler or back when he was, when he wasn't in charge of himself and believed everything. He wraps the blanket around himself. 

_Peter was born_ and his parents were Richard and Mary Parker and they raised him in Queens and then they passed away in a plane crash. An ordinary plane crash. He went to live with Aunt May and Uncle Ben and they loved him very much and he was happy. He got bit by a spider and then Uncle Ben died in a very ordinary mugging right outside their apartment. Peter became Spider-man and actually met Tony Stark, and then they found out Tony was actually Peter's biological father. There was Pipey. Wanda did magic all over his head. 

Peter always thought he was one of many, the sole survivor of brave agents who passed on and he was raised to serve. His parents loved him and they loved their purpose. They left him in Hydra's care and they died when he was a baby. 

He was the one that survived. By the time he was three, he was the only child still alive from the many other babies around him. They were smart and they didn't raise him like he was a robot. He had teachers and house mothers who acted like they loved him. Maybe they did love him. Mia and Amy were round and sweet and they told him all about his parents. They fed him and read to him and told him he was such a good boy. He could do anything. 

Combat and skulduggery and being a spy, that started when he was four. He was good at all of that, too. 

_Peter remembers being able to read even before he could remember anything._ His first memory is reading Charlotte's Web aloud to his mother. She corrected his pronunciation. She asked him about what was happening in the story, what he thought. He doesn't remember what he said, but he remembers wanting to show off for her. She grinned. "You are smart," she said. "You're so smart."

_He remembers being homeschooled,_ both his mother and father teaching him. His father thought he needed time with other kids, too, so he would drive Peter to see his aunt and uncle and they would all four go to a park and museums. It was a homeschooler meet up, he realizes. The other kids climbed on things and Peter followed them up as best he could. He wasn't that coordinated. He fell and his butt hurt and his dad told him he would be okay. "Try again," his dad said. "You can do it."

_His parents died._ Ben explained it to him. He went to regular school, didn't even skip a grade. He overheard Ben and May arguing about it. He was in third grade and he read at an eighth grade level. He never took math tests to figure out how far along he was because Ben put his foot down. "We'll do our best," Ben said. "He'll be fine." Peter got bored easily and played with a little calculator game he'd made in his lap. Sometimes he'd build it again to make it more challenging. He liked to make memory games, too. He read half the books in the library. Sometimes Ben would help him with his scavenging and building. 

_Ben and May still took him to parks and museums._ Sometimes he'd recognize other kids from school. Ned was the one who liked to play with him, too. They made games together and played with Legos. 

_He just felt safe with May and Ben._ They let him read anything or play on computers as long as he talked about it with them. In hindsight, encouraging him to talk about everything explained a lot about Peter now. 

Peter used to scramble all over his room at the base where he was raised. Different bases, same people. Hanging upside down from the ceiling for fun. Mia clapped her hands and told him he was doing great. Amy just wasn't there one morning when he was six. Mia said he didn't need so much help. "Amy will miss you." Peter missed her for a while but he was so busy. He could walk on walls and climb anywhere. One time he was missing for three hours in the bowels of the base. Mia clapped her hands again. She told him to describe everything he'd seen. "You're so smart," she said. 

He trained, he had classes in every kind of science and learning languages. He was allowed to fight as hard as possible, but he was little. Everyone was very nice to him, even the trainers. They would tell him he was strong, even little, and so fast and he needed to try harder. "But you're really doing great," the trainer said, grimacing. Peter could tell he'd really hurt the guy. 

When Peter was ten, he went on his first mission. It wasn't his mission, he was just an innocent looking kid distracting a minister of finance while the actual agent did his work. He got to ride on a plane, a commercial airliner. It was playing pretend but also Peter was ten and he knew it wasn't a game. It kinda was a game. 

He kicked his legs like he'd seen kids do, it was actually pretty fun. Then he was picked up by the agent whose actual mission it was. The guy was not used to working with kids. Peter was fine, though. At the appointed time, Peter went out on the street and walked towards the target. As he got closer he progressively got more and more mopey and pretended to be lost until he saw the target and intentionally stumbled until he tripped. He tried to stand and cried and babbled in French. The Target and his guards stopped since Peter was in their path. While people fussed over Peter, the actual agent drove by and shot the target. Peter screamed like everyone else. 

He went home and got debriefed. He did a lot of those kinds of missions for the next two years. The decoy kid. He behaved, he played on the correct character, he went home. Mia said, "You're doing great. So great. Everyone said you were awesome."

She told him before she left. She said he was ready to stand on his own. He was only ten but he was clearly more than good enough at taking care of himself. "You'll be great," she said. "Your parents would be so proud."

He did missions like, decoy kid. Now he had teachers who were going to help him blend and adopt persona after persona. They called them personas. They also showed him TV and movies he would be expected to know. "How to be a kid," one of them called it. 

When he was twelve, they very seriously talked to him and sent him on his first mission where he was the one pulling the trigger. He nodded dutifully and went and did it. Killing someone wasn't as hard as everyone said it was. It didn't even bother him that much. It was exactly what Hydra had trained him from birth to do. Just like his parents did. Unlike his parents, he was enhanced by a radioactive spider and whatever else they'd done to him. He was great at this. He was needed at this. 

Then Captain America broke Hydra. Peter hadn't had one specific home base since he was six, so he didn't feel any crushing yearning for home. Both of his most recent adult handlers had been killed in the Triskelion. So he was sort of on his own. Maybe someone would come look for him. Maybe he should go look for someone. 

But before he could make up his mind, he checked out the SHIELD files. He knew most of the Hydra codes and he loved decoding anyway. 

His mother had been an agent. She'd seduced someone on purpose to get pregnant. Peter couldn't figure out the someone exactly. It didn't matter. They'd lied to him. In retrospect, it wasn't that surprising. There had been so many other babies that died, how could all those agents have died leaving kids all nearly the same age? It didn't make sense. 

Surprise, surprise, Peter thought. He was in a high school library in Phoenix, he was thirteen. He was old enough not to be surprised that the born from the Nazis organization he'd been raised by had lied to him. It did sting a little. Did Mia and Amy even care about him? He knew now from all his tv watching and the personas they had him adopt, kids weren't raised like he was. Kids weren't taught like he had been. Different moral values. 

But Peter was special. He was better than everyone. Hydra hadn't been that wrong about that. But maybe the world didn't need to be molded. Maybe he could just do whatever he wanted and let the world guide itself. 

Hydra was still out there and someone, more than one person, knew about him. At some point they might come looking for him once they'd re-organized. He wasn't interested in that. Also, he was thirteen, and had no actual resources or even ID.

He had his current persona, his backpack and these clothes and his powers and a number of weapons. He decided to travel. 

Hydra had a lot of allies and friends. Peter had met more than a few of them in Mexico. He pretended to have an adult handler and that got him pretty far. He had two apartments, one in Mexico City and one much further south. In both places, there was one big bed and one twin bed. He was supposed to be the one in the twin bed. He didn't really decorate but he didn't have to, no one ever came over he didn't invite. In his free time, what little he had, Peter made sure his adult handler was well established and read scientific journals. He also learned how to skateboard because that was fun. 

When he was fourteen and a half, he took a kind of transfer to work in Eastern Europe. People loved ex-Hydra in that part of the world. Cheap to live there, too. He killed all sorts of people, usually bad people. He mostly used guns, but sometimes he'd stab or poison. It was kind of sick how many places a white boy who was reasonably clean and could appear anywhere between twelve and seventeen could get into. Seventeen was harder to pull off, but Peter could do the posture. He went everywhere he wanted. Sick and gross, he thought. Definitely something wrong with society. Hydra approved, he thought, but it wasn't right. 

He had enough money to get the really good fake IDs and documents. He decided to retire. Mostly. When Hydra came looking for him, it would be harder to find him if he wasn't working at the job Hydra had trained him to do. Maybe he'd do something super surprising. 

Peter moved to Queens, picked an innocuous last name; White. He had all his documents and he was really good at breaking into systems and pretending to have an adult who took care of him. Hydra trained him in all of that. 

Peter got an apartment and moved in. He was very careful with all his purchases and he decorated like there were two people living there. This time he did decorate with throw rugs and shitty art. He'd had a whole course on reading decor, so he could easily fake the impression he wanted to give off. He even stocked the second bedroom with clothes that were too big for him. For his very own bedroom, for his new life bedroom, he bought a king size bed. The mattress in the master bedroom was the cheapest he could find, Peter's mattress was top of the line. 

He needed more money, just a little nest egg. He went back to Mexico. Just a few weeks for the old cartel. He suspected his main contact no longer believed Peter had an adult taking care of him. But he didn't try to take advantage of it. "You still look twelve, though," Eduardo said. "That's a real gift."

Peter was staying in a nice apartment, and contrary to every bit of his training, he went to the same place for breakfast nearly every day. There was a really cute waitress. She was about his age, his real age. Maybe she was sixteen. They would talk about telenovelas and wrestling every single day. Peter made an effort to keep up with all of it even when he was out killing. 

When he was done with the job, he actually asked the waitress out to dinner and back to his apartment. He'd never really dated anyone and he hadn't been old enough for Hydra to start training him like they'd trained his mother before Hydra went down. So he was pretty inexperienced. He'd never kissed anyone. His virginity felt like something he needed to get rid of. He really liked the waitress. She had this super loud laugh, like she didn't mind being noticed. 

She wasn't inexperienced so everything went much better than Peter expected. He sat up from the bed, still floating and happy just from having sex. He reached for his bag, went past both the guns and pulled out his dollars. "I wanted to --"

She was very offended. He just wanted to help her. He was definitely an asshole. 

_When Peter was fourteen,_ he was on the bus on his way to Ned's, when the bus was hijacked by crazed people who made them breathe in some awful gas and Peter doesn't know what happened but he woke up in a hospital with a spider bite on his hand. He was the only one who survived. 

_He gets the parallel._ He remembers one thing, his other memories are similar. But a different story. He honestly prefers the cult on a bus one to the born into Hydra one.


	3. Chapter 3

Peter went back to Queens with his nest egg. He decided to register at Midtown Tech. It seemed like the least boring option. He smiled at his neighbors and tried to look young and innocent. It seemed to be working. He would stay in school and then go to college and he'd have a whole wall of paper and people around him who knew him as Peter White, innocent, cold, offputting guy. Not a child assassin from Hydra.

Peter didn't fit in at school. He was retired. There was no mission need to make friends. He needed a diploma and documentation. 

But he wanted to get into college without dipping too much into his nest egg. That required activities. He didn't mind robotics. He tried out for academic decathlon and got on that team. 

The robotics kids were pretty fun. He actually learned things and he collaborated. He was good at collaborating. Hydra didn't let him play like that. 

Acadec he regretted a little. They made it to Nationals and he helped them win. Liz was really pretty and she kept smiling at him. He was rooming with Ned Leeds, who was super nice. If Peter were thinking strategically, he'd try to be friends with the kid. He was retired, though. Fuck thinking strategically. He just didn't want to learn how to be friends. He kept his eyes on his phone and made sure he didn't miss any of his telenovelas. 

There was a super cute boy on the other team. Cute and funny. Laughed loudly. Peter went and knocked on his door. Javier, the kid was Javier. There was a party of sorts happening in Javier's room. He had a wine cooler which did nothing for him, Javier had one, too. It made him giggle. They were kissing after twenty minutes, and definitely making out after a little of that. Peter reminded himself not to offer anyone money. He realized he liked sucking dick, actually. He liked Javier. 

As he left Javier's room, tightening his belt, he saw Michelle Jones sitting in front of her door. She gave him a little nod. He felt loose and free. Sex was great. He wanted to do it all the time. 

He said, "Did you get locked out of your room? I know a way to break in."

"Seriously? You know a way?" She was actually smiling at him. "How do you know a way?"

Peter said, "I was a contract killer for a few years. It's a good skill to have, breaking into places."

"Contract killer at twelve, really?" She was still smiling. 

"I was trained from birth by Hydra. Don't tell. I could be in danger," Peter said. 

"You know," Michelle said. "I might believe you. Did you kill Javier from New Mexico?"

"I used to be, I don't do that anymore," Peter said, squatting down next to her. "Anyway, I'm kidding."

"I was briefly intrigued," Michelle said. "I'm just sitting out here sketching because Cindy is already asleep."

On a very transactional level, making friends would lead to sex. But also, he would maybe like having friends. Even without the lure of getting laid, he started being friends. He liked Michelle and she made him call her MJ. They were friends. Being friends with MJ meant being friends with Ned. Ned was just a genuinely nice guy. Ned would always send him invites for weird computer games. Sometimes they were just soothing shapes. Peter played because it made Ned happy. That was what you were supposed to do for friends. 

He started dating Liz, she was really pretty. They went out for two months. Dating was going to her house and doing homework together. She showed him videos from youtube, it was like a language. Then they would go to movies and sometimes parties and also there was making out. More than that after a month. She was one of the kindest people he'd ever met. Then she had to move because her dad had gotten in trouble with the FBI. Peter told her he could kill the lead prosecutor for her, but she just stopped crying and started laughing. "I'll miss you," she said. Liz had a driving ambition but she didn't think she had to step on other people to get there. He'd never met anyone like her before. 

Since he wasn't dating Liz, he could date. Alcohol and pot barely worked on him and he'd spent too much time with poisons to try drugs he hadn't made himself. But he could be charming. He met cute boys and cute girls. It was a nice six or seven weeks when he was in a wonderful mood. 

Peter woke up when he heard something happening outside. Something violent and bad. He looked out his window to the front sidewalk, someone was getting mugged. Not someone, Ben Parker. He liked Ben Parker, he was a nice guy. He and May lived across the hall, they were nice to him. May talked about how they were thinking of adoption. 

Peter already had his headset on, he called 911 and put on his best sleepy teen who'd never seen death voice. While he pulled out his favorite rifle. He couldn't exactly shoot the mugger, simple forensics would trace back to Peter's window. Luckily it was a tree lined avenue. He shot the tree above the stupid mugger so a few branches broke and just like Peter expected, one smacked the damn mugger on the back of his head.

Peter stashed his rifle and ran outside in his pajamas. He carried his phone. Ben was prone on the ground, and so was the mugger. That stray branch had hit just right, the mugger was dead. 

Ben was in pain, he was having difficulty breathing. Peter bent over him, applying pressure to the worst shot he could see. It was pretty close to Ben's heart, that wasn't good. Peter said, "Ben, the ambulance is coming. I called them."

"Pete," Ben said, with a scary gurgle. "Tell May, May, love her."

Peter blinked, and pressed harder. Maybe Ben would make it. 

Peter had inflicted enough pain to know Ben wouldn't make it. He was being silly. He was tearing up, too. "I'll tell her, I promise."

He heard the sirens and saw the flashing lights out of his peripheral vision. "Don't worry, I'll tell May," Peter said. 

Ben died while Peter was looking in his eyes. It wasn't the first time Peter watched someone die. It wasn't even the first time he cared. He liked people. He wasn't a complete sociopath. 

He was really sad this time. He saw May being led out by the cops. She was crying. Ben was already gone in the ambulance. Peter stood stuck to the ground. He needed to tell her, but he really didn't want to. He still had blood all over him and other people tended to freak out about that shit. He just didn't want to tell her. 

Other cops talked to Peter, he kept his story simple. He found he didn't have to add too much to be shocked. 

Peter woke up again and decided he wasn't up for school. He called in to Midtown, doing his Peter's fake dad voice. He'd given his dad a faint German accent and a first name of Aaron. Because of Hydra and the Nazis and the whole Aryan supremacy ethos. It felt less funny. He explained the trauma his poor Peter had experienced and hung up. 

Peter went over to May's. He did tell her what Ben had said, and then he stayed to help her out with everything. Other people came over, too, but mostly Peter made sure May had everything she needed. He stayed after everyone left and helped her set up a place to sleep on her couch. "I don't want, I can't do that bed," she said. "You don't have to stay, Peter. You're being very sweet."

Peter shoved his hands in his pockets. "I really liked Ben. You guys are both so nice." 

"What, whatever happened to your mother, Peter? Sorry, you don't have to tell me."

Peter frowned. "Oh, I don't mind. She died in childbirth. With me." He'd seen it in the records. Hydra had killed her after Peter was born because she wanted to keep him. That's what the records said. He wondered why she was so attached to him that she did something so stupid. Smarter would have been to wait until after she'd recovered from birth and then try to steal him away. 

He was a horrible person. That was the first time he'd really thought of himself that way. 

It also wasn't his fault, he thought. He'd been raised by people who only thought of him as a weapon, and lied to him. They raised him to think he was special so he could be a better killer. 

May said, "I bet your dad wants you home."

Peter thought that he bet his dad didn't even know he existed. Probably wouldn't want his slightly sociopathic ex-child killer. 

Peter smiled. He said, "He left this morning, another trip out of town. He said to take care of myself and make sure you were okay."

May nodded. 

"Go to sleep," Peter said. "I'll get you breakfast in the morning."

May closed her eyes. 

_It wasn't like that._ Peter knows it wasn't like that. Ben got mugged right outside their door. A few neighbors came outside like Peter, but Peter was the only one who ran to Ben's side. It's different, it's different, Peter knew what really happened.

_He likes that the guy ended up dead,_ in reality he's still alive. Ben's killer is still alive out there somewhere. 

In the morning Peter did get her breakfast and he helped her with all the planning steps in funerals and after. Then more of May's friends showed up and he went back to his apartment. He laid down on his bed. He actually picked up the phone when it buzzed. 

It was MJ. "Are you going to be in school on Monday? I'm just asking because of academic decathlon."

"Oh, sorry. My neighbor, he died. He was killed. Right outside and I was with him, after it happened. So I've been, you know, helping out his wife. She's right across the hall. They're both really nice. He was really nice." 

"That sucks," MJ said. "That's really awful. It's good you could be there for them, for her."

"I guess," Peter said. 

"I knew you weren't really a contract killer," MJ said.

"Oh, that was just a joke, make me look cool," Peter said. He turned over and laid on his stomach. 

"Look, we may be dark nihilistic teens, but that's the only way that is cool. Killing people is wrong. That's pretty basic," MJ said.

"I know," Peter said. "It was a joke. I know."

"I know, sorry. I was just listening to some assholes today at lunch, I fear for the future of our world," MJ said. "But you're not a contract killer, so I guess we have some hope."

"You're definitely not, so can I just have faith in you?"

MJ said, "I wouldn't if I were you."

Ned came to Ben's funeral, he genuinely wanted to help Peter. 

Peter started dating MJ a week after that. He told her he lied about how often his dad was home, so he was lying to her slightly less. It made him feel ashamed lying to her. She wouldn't have qualified as special to Hydra though he knew they would have used her intelligence, and he liked her anyway. 

"Everyone says you were partying," MJ said. They were in his apartment, he made her dinner. He debated pretending to not be able to cook, but it was ridiculous. MJ knew his dad was almost never home. "Partying." She made a face. 

"Are you going to slut shame me?" He grinned. "I know no one does that to boys."

"Not to middle class conventionally attractive white boys," MJ said. "I guess." She pressed her lips together. "I'm not gonna be like that. I won't be on my knees in some suburban bedroom, okay?"

"Um," Peter said. "I didn't think that. I don't. I never did anything like that with Liz. I don't, I only want to do what you want to do."

"So, why not with Liz?" 

"I just said," Peter said. "I don't want to do anything you don't want to do. Liz didn't like making out at parties so we didn't. You want to move at your own pace, that's what I want."

MJ said, "I'm not sure I believe you."

"Well, I'm not going to pressure you and I'm not going to be upset about not getting laid," Peter said. "So hopefully you'll start to believe me."

MJ said, "You're so weird."

"Sorry," he said. "Sorry."

"This time, it's cute," she said. "Your attitudes on consent are cute. I like it."

"Good," he said. 

She turned on the TV to Forensic Files. "I love true crime," she said. "Sorry."

"No, it's cool." They ate and watched TV and he had his arm around her. She kissed him at the door. He said, "See you later."

Sometimes Ned tagged along with Peter and MJ, again. He was an okay guy. Peter decided to put even more effort into his friend making skills. He could do it. It was all about absorbing a persona so deeply it never broke. 

Except he needed to be able to snap back to himself, at some point Hydra would find him. He really didn't want to go back to that line of work. 

He needed to stay in shape. But the easiest place to find an ex-agent was a boxing gym or karate dojo. Peter decided on some pilates barre yoga combo place three blocks away. He wasn't the only teen in his classes but he was almost always the only man. His Peter White persona would be perfectly comfortable doing that. They were pretty hard classes.


	4. Chapter 4

Everything was going really well, actually. He had his classes and they weren't completely boring. He went and worked out with the ladies in the early morning, so many squats and stretches. He had a great girlfriend and at least one actual friend. He checked in with May all the time. He would knock on her door and bring her takeout and play cards with her. She was even nicer as a kind of friend than a neighbor. 

Peter was about to turn sixteen and almost started to think he was safe. The Avengers maybe took care of Hydra for him. Not that Peter was rooting for one side or the other. MJ wouldn't have trouble picking. The Avengers didn't pretend to love him or send him to kill people when he was twelve. So Peter decided he was rooting for the Avengers. 

Captain America and Iron Man had some sort of spat but now they were back together. According to Ned and MJ the new woman on the team had been experimented on by Hydra, that's how she got her powers. He'd said, "Wow."

He was sure he'd buried himself away from whomever he used to be. He never left fingerprints, or hair or dna. That's what he'd been taught. But he was always vigilant. One morning he was walking back from his early morning exercise class - lots of "feel your foundation, feel your strength, reach up reach for your best" - and his sense of danger exploded. He went low and ran in the opposite direction. Something, someone swooped in behind him. Peter reversed again and jumped up to a balcony on his side of the street. 

The guy coming for him wasn't the Falcon or anyone Peter recognized. The Guy had some kind of jetpack, was dressed all in black and carried a nasty looking gun. Black suit jetpack said, "Come on, kid. Time to come in."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Peter said. He threw himself up again, onto the roof and then ran across it. He jumped to the next roof and crawled down the building. He ducked around on the ground, trying to lose the Jetpack Guy. It wasn't going great. Jetpack didn't quite get Peter but Peter hadn't lost him. Whoever Jetpack was, he didn't use Peter's name, just kept saying "Kid" or "boy" but he didn't say he was law enforcement either. 

Peter was ready to go on the offense when he realized someone was coming up behind him and Jetpack Guy. Peter decided to really run. He ran straight, at full speed towards the subway entrance and down the stairs. He stopped abruptly and then walked slowly, trying to blend. He overheard two people who walked past him. One said, "That was definitely Captain America. Captain America."

"Yeah, we're idiots for getting on the subway, something's going to explode and we'll be stuck," the other one said.

Peter blended with the rush and used a fare card he'd stolen the day before. It was just smart to be able to get around without being traced. He stole one every week, varying who he took it from. Never anybody who seemed like they couldn't afford it. He got on the first train that arrived and then got off after two stops. He transferred to another train and got off that one after three stops. 

He should have ditched his phone and never gone back, but instead he grabbed his secondary phone from his backpack, the one he used for Aaron and called himself in sick to school. He looked at his phone, the one with pictures of MJ on it, and Ned and Liz and the one he'd taken of his winning board in Scrabble last time he played with May. He needed to be smarter than this. But he wasn't. He didn't get rid of his phones or put on his fake glasses or shave his head. He just wanted to call MJ or turn in his homework. 

Peter took a deep breath and went up into the sunlight of the city. He turned left, turned right, went back and finally settled into a hole in the wall coffee place. He got a latte and sat down. He was sitting there contemplating his phone when a woman came in and just sat down next to him. His danger sense was only mildly twinging. 

The woman said, "Why is what's left of Hydra looking for you?"

Peter didn't look up. He assumed it was Black Widow. He hoped he'd made it hard for her to follow him. A little hard. He was looking at a picture of MJ with a Snapchat filter that made her look like a puppy. He was so stupid. He said, "I don't do that anymore." He was giving away too much information. 

Black Widow said, "They want you back."

He rubbed his forehead and locked his phone. A week ago, he'd had sex with MJ for the first time and she'd said she loved him. He hadn't said anything back but he was thinking about it. He looked up and said, "What are you going to do with me?"

Black Widow wasn't giving anything away. She said, "What should we do?"

Peter almost rolled his eyes. He said, "Forget you met me so I can go to school for my last few periods."

"Really?"

Peter smiled. "I have to get my homework from my apartment so I can go, you look away. Hydra, they're bad people. They've always got bad reasons. You should let me go and foil their plans."

Black Widow's smile was sincere, Peter thought. She said, "But you said you used to do that, their evil plans."

"It's not fair," Peter said. "I didn't know anything else. I was born into it, and trained as a child. You know how that is. You do."

Black Widow said, "What an interesting defense. Why don't you come with me, and tell it to me and my friends, and maybe you get to go school tomorrow."

"Tomorrow is Saturday," Peter said. 

But it was hope. He followed her out and got in a fancy looking limo she'd summoned. It was driving them to Avengers Tower. He felt his phone buzz in his hand and answered. "Hey," he said.

"Are you actually sick? Are we still going to the movies tomorrow? If you're sick, maybe we can talk Ned and Cindy and Abe out of seeing that cartoon," MJ said.

"I'm not actually sick but there's a thing that came up. I don't know how to explain it. It's about my dad," Peter said, thinking he was lying. 

Peter made a resolution. He was not going down without a fight. Hydra was wrong about everything but they had taught him to keep going. Always keep fighting. 

"Look at you," Black Widow said. "You made a decision."

He didn't smile at her. 

She took him upstairs when they arrived. He stepped into a weird glass room. He could get out in three different ways but unless he went out the front door, his identity was burned. That was the endgoal of this, do what it took to have go back to his apartment. 

He was facing Iron Man and some robot looking guy. Vision. Tony Stark waved him to sit down, Peter did so cautiously. Four ways out now, he saw another exit he could use. Black Widow shifted and blocked two of the exits, winking at him. 

Tony Stark said, "You're claiming you're a former Hydra child soldier? Trained up as a baby."

"I am," Peter said.

"We haven't seen any evidence of you," Tony Stark said.

"I was a really good child soldier," Peter said. "Very well trained."

He saw Black Widow smile.

More of the Avengers showed up, Captain America and Falcon. Tony Stark said, "We don't really have a way to confirm your story, you see, because maybe you just know other people's awful origin story and decided to borrow that one."

Peter leaned to one side. He said, "But you caught the Hydra guy who was after me, and he didn't know me from last week, he knew me from years ago. So clearly I was very young and was also an assassin. Very young."

Captain America said, "He said you were twelve."

"Probably. I don't remember him specifically but he didn't have a very recognizable voice. And I didn't see under the mask." Peter sighed. "I can show all of you the parts of the leaked Hydra files I decoded that refer to me. Shows I was born into this. I didn't have a chance. I'm trying to change now."

Vision said, "That seems like a plan. But we are not guaranteeing we will let you go."

"But we might," Black Widow said.

They went to a lab. Apparently part of the testing was having Peter show off his powers and allow a blood test and swabbing his cheek. He didn't love it. But his goal was to go home and have some semblance of freedom. He liked being in charge of himself. 

Peter pointed out the parts in the file that were about him. He provided the code they used. "See, it's right in here. Mom seduced someone, Hydra killed her because she didn't want her baby experimented on, and then they experimented on me. This line is about how many of us there were. Fifty five dead the first set of experiments, four more over the next two years. And then there was just me."

Tony Stark and Falcon looked disgusted. Everyone else was probably hiding it. "You're not like me," Black Widow said. "The Red Room didn't start with babies."

"Probably smart," Peter said. "It wasn't very successful. Apparently everyone was very upset and they only tried it one more time. That time, all the babies died. That's the next paragraph." Peter wanted to check his phone but he'd had to give that to Black Widow. He could see her looking through it and then handing it to Tony Stark. Followed by his Aaron phone and then his burner burner. 

Peter sat cross-legged on the lab's table. He could wait them out. Tony Stark wasn't so patient. He said, "So, fine, we accept this horrifying story Spider boy just told us. Why do we let him go wander back to his gifted and talented school and age appropriate friends? The ones who don't suspect Pete killed hundreds of people?"

"It's not hundreds," Peter said. "Under two hundred. Technically I guess that's hundreds but you make it sound like way more than it was."

"You don't feel any remorse," Black Widow said, smiling. 

"I do," Peter said. "I do feel bad. Despite how I was raised. I haven't done it since."

"You killed that fellow who mugged your neighbor," Black Widow said. 

Peter hadn't mentioned that. He assumed he hadn't given that information away. He said, "I didn't mean to kill him. Well, I was hoping I would. I was trying to stop him. I just didn't care if he died. I wanted to save Ben."

"After you broke free of Hydra, you spent two years working as a gun for hire," Captain America said. He didn't sound approving of Peter's pluck. 

"I didn't really have any other skills," Peter said. "I was thirteen and I wanted to survive on my own. I was working for cartels and organized crime, I wasn't exactly killing innocent people. I wasn't even killing people all the time. I spied and I robbed people."

"Too, you spied and robbed, too, in addition to murder," Tony Stark said. 

"I don't do that now," Peter said. "I'm not a threat. I didn't kill Jetpack guy and I could have."

"I'm sure he appreciates that," Falcon said. 

"I just want to go back to school and graduate and go to college and do something that doesn't involve," Peter paused. He thought killing people but that didn't sound remorseful. He said, "That doesn't involve hurting anyone."

"Sir," Vision said, looking at Tony Stark. "We should talk out of his hearing range."

Falcon said, "Can you hear really far away?" 

Peter nodded. "Enhanced senses. Like a spider."

Vision correctly calculated Peter's range and he didn't hear whatever the robot passed on to Tony Stark. Then Tony Stark came back in, looking furious, and saying, "Did they teach you to fake your blood, your DNA?"

"No," Peter said. "I wish."

Everyone was staring at Tony Stark. Who was staring at Peter and looking away and then staring at him. Tony Stark said, "You're free to go. Free in this case means we're going to be watching you constantly and you will be coming back here soon so we can keep testing you."

Peter wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth, so he jumped off the table and grabbed his phones and backpack. He went straight to the elevator and looked for buttons before anyone contradicted Tony. Stark waved towards the elevator and the doors closed. 

It was freaky as fuck. But Peter was walking out the front door. He went home to his apartment and he had his Friday dinner with May. Peter cooked like usual. May said, "You seem really anxious."

"I thought I was covering pretty well," Peter said. He didn't think that. But it seemed like the right thing to say. 

May smiled. "Come on, what's up?"

"It's," Peter said. He had to figure out a story for MJ tomorrow. He liked things that stuck close to the truth, that was always the easiest. "It's my dad. Some, like, things he used to do which were not one hundred percent legal and now it's sort of coming back on him? I don't know, it's not his fault, really. He didn't have any other options, I think."

May frowned. "Well. We always have options. They may be really hard but we always have options. We always wanted kids, and Ben knew a guy." She frowned harder. "He would have set up an adoption for us but it was under the table and we didn't do it. There was too much wrong there. I know it wouldn't be the baby's fault but we would have been the ones participating."

Peter sat down across from her. "But some people aren't raised to even see that."

"Sounds like an excuse," May said. "I don't want to be mean to your dad."

"Oh, I don't mind," Peter said, smiling. 

Peter kept waiting for the Avengers to come for him. He went on his date with MJ, he made distracted jokes with Abe and Cindy.


	5. Chapter 5

_Four and half months ago,_ the Avengers made up from their fight. In Peter's painful new memories shoving themselves into his head, the Avengers were apart for even less time. 

_Four months ago,_ Peter, who was not an Avenger, and is still not an Avenger, joined the battle, and Peter got splatted. He lost a lot of blood and transfusing Peter and his weird new Spider body was complicated and because it was complicated everyone figured out Peter's biological father was Tony Stark. 

Sunday Peter was eating microwave popcorn straight out of the bag while watching old episodes of some Disney show Ned had insisted everyone their age knew. It wasn't a great show, maybe it worked better on eight year olds. Someone knocked on his door. Peter looked through the keyhole first and then opened the door to Tony Stark and Captain America. "Come on in," he said. "Quickly, before my neighbor freaks out."

They both stayed right inside the door while Peter paused his TV. "Hi, how are you?"

Neither responded. Peter sat back on his couch. 

Captain America said, "You really never wondered about your biological father?"

Peter held still. "No, I didn't. He got used and then, I'm nothing to be proud of. Nothing I've accomplished, really."

"That's a bit negative," Captain America said. 

"Wasn't that the whole point you were all yelling at me? I killed people, I don't feel bad enough about it for you, I chose when I was thirteen and my handlers were dead to make a living the only way I knew how, all of that," Peter said. 

Tony Stark said, "It's me and you're right, I'm not proud of you."

Peter nodded slowly. "That makes sense."

"You're taking it well," Tony Stark said. 

Peter shrugged. "You just told me, I'm processing. Sorry you're not proud of me or want me."

Tony leaned against the door and sighed. Captain America had started quietly scanning the apartment and even wandering into the bedrooms. Peter wanted to object but he also had a lot to process. It did make sense. Tony Stark seemed like a good target for Hydra to want to have a kid from, of, whatever. He realized he was never going to be that tall, which was a little sad. 

Tony finally said, "I didn't mean that."

Peter crossed his arms and nudged away the popcorn bag with his knee. "Why not?"

"I don't know you well enough to write you off. Of course, technically, I didn't want you but the technicalities of this whole situation --"

"Are gross," Peter said. "Even I can see that."

"You're hardly completely amoral," Tony said. He kept frowning. "We've checked, you seem to have actually been crime free for all of the past year. Except for the vigilante arborist act."

"I told you that," Peter said. His skin felt tight. He wondered how many of his handlers knew he was Tony's. No wonder they were never surprised at his intelligence. His mom had been even more stupid than Peter thought, if she'd just waited, she could have asked Tony Stark for help. She'd been an agent, she had to know what was going to happen. 

Peter said, "I'm sorry I don't feel bad enough about killing people for you. Before, before you were Iron Man, there were a lot of people who you had a hand in killing. Do you think about that?"

"Every single fucking day," Tony said. "All of them. The soldiers, the people after I became Iron Man. I think about all of it. I don't know how you don't."

Peter looked down at his hands. "What are you going to do now to me?"

"Nothing," Tony said. "That's where we are right now. Nothing. But that's temporary. And you need to come to Avengers Tower in three days and we'll have more worked out then. Probably. But we're not going to stop watching you."

"Is Captain America planting bugs in my place?" Peter glanced over at his bedroom as Captain America walked out of it. 

"No," Captain America said. "You could do some work on your cover in your, uh, your pretend parent's room."

"I don't let a lot of people in here," Peter said. What a weird thing to be worried about, Peter thought. Were they just checking that Peter had meant what he said about not giving a shit about his biological father. Peter just wanted to go back to his stupid television. 

"Okay then," Captain America said. He gave Tony Stark a manly shoulder squeeze. 

Tony said, "You're not off the hook, I'll be back."

"Hasta la vista," Peter said quietly as they closed the door. 

But it wasn't so bad. For a month all Peter had to do was go to Avengers Tower once or twice a week and have incredibly awkward conversations with his new dad and be analyzed slash debriefed about his childhood in Hydra by a very skilled shrink. Or another agent. She wasn't Black Widow or the new Avenger woman. She was short, shorter than Peter, older than Tony Stark, Vietnamese origin he would bet, and round. Dr. Nguyen said she didn't work for SHIELD but she could obviously still throw down in hand to hand. He asked her if she was supposed to teach him to be a better person. She didn't answer and led him in circles about morality and what was right. 

But for a month Peter still had his life. He went to school and his exercise studio and hung out with his friends and had dinner with May twice a week. She was lapsing, or her grief was coming back. Probably a lot of people had moved on. Sometimes he tried to engage May about whatever Dr. Nguyen had brought up. "It's a question of what people have nurtured in their education," he said.

"I guess," May said. "Do you really think you can teach people to be bad?"

"We know you can," Peter said. "I can give you a million examples."

"I can give you a million and one examples of that not working," May said. "Ben's family were awful, just awful. They were bullies and they neglected those boys. But Ben and Richard still turned out okay."

"People were nice to them at school, it wasn't just their parents, though," Peter said. He wasn't arguing very hard. 

It was probably all his fault he was broken and amoral, someone else would have come through his childhood waiting to be free and wouldn't have spent his early teen years murdering people in Mexico and Bulgaria. 

May tapped his hand. "People weren't very nice at school. Not from what Ben said. But that was just who they were."

"Maybe it was church," Peter said.

"Maybe," May said. She smiled aggressively at him. "Maybe most people are good people. If you give them a chance."

He'd had sex with MJ, it was her first time. He didn't have to try to be nice with her, he loved her. He was always nice to her. It was the easiest thing in the world. She was so fucking smart and together. He pretty much would do anything to make her happy with him, and generally happy. She actually dragged him to protests and he carried her bags while she marched with her signs. He listened to her talk about police brutality and climate change and trans rights. 

Then Dr. Nguyen started asking him why he didn't tell MJ the truth about who he was. "Who I used to be," Peter said. 

Tony suddenly decided to get in Peter's face constantly. "Just once," he said. "Just once admit something's your fault. I'm sure you can fake that."

Peter sat at the counter in the shared kitchen and counted to ten. He said, "Okay, Dad, if that's what you want."

Tony inhaled sharply and glared. Then he said, "Fine, fine. I apologize. We're going to change a few things up soon. I think it'll be better for you not to live alone."

"I don't," Peter said. He stood up and got his bag. This was such a great conversation to have after Dr. Nguyen turned on him with all the pushing and poking. "I think I'm doing fine alone."

"You're not," Tony said. "But it's not happening now, so go home."

Peter clenched his jaw but he just walked out. 

MJ came over so they could study for Organic Chemistry. He kept looking at her and thinking about Dr. Nguyen's not helpful at all bad advice. She looked up at him. "What's wrong?" 

He stopped looking at her. He said, "Sorry. I'm sorry. I've been, um, I've lied to you."

The way her hands moved made him think she was bracing herself. She said, "Is this about your dad?"

"Sort of. I mean, Aaron White, he doesn't, he doesn't exist. I made him up. I live here by myself, I pay all the bills." He refused to look up at her face.

"How do you have that much money, Peter?" 

Peter closed his eyes and held his breath. Then he said, "I lied to you."

MJ grabbed his chin and forced his head up. "Are you fucking serious? Are you fucking telling me …"

He looked at her. Part of him wanted to cry, and tell her how it wasn't his fault but he knew from Tony that didn't go over well. He knew, mostly, it wasn't true. It was partly true. He said, "I'm sorry. I knew it was wrong not to tell you." He'd figured it out. 

"Oh, god, god, god," MJ said. She pulled away from him and rubbed her hands furiously on her sweatshirt. "No. Nope. Okay, okay." She gathered up all her stuff. Then she said, "So we're broken up. I don't know why you're pretending to be, is this a long con or something?"

"No, it's not. It's not. I'm not, I'm trying to be different. I'm trying." He swallowed and his throat hurt. "I told you because I'm trying to be better."

"You didn't actually say it," MJ said. She had her back against the door. "Can you say it?"

"I was raised by Hydra since, like, I was born." He was staring at the floor. She hurt to look at. He said, "They trained me to be a killer and that's what I did. Then Hydra collapsed and I was on my own and I was thirteen and I told myself I didn't have a choice. So I did the same job for other people. In Mexico and Eastern Europe. And then I went back to Mexico to get the last of my nest egg so I could live here. And buy all the fake IDs and other things I needed. So there you go."

"That's disgusting," MJ said. "What they did to you, what you did. You lied to me. And you, you touched me with your killer dirty hands."

"I know," Peter said. "Please don't tell on me."

"Who would believe me?" They were both silent. 

Then she said, "Who else knows?"

"Just the Avengers, I guess," he said. 

Then she was gone. 

She didn't say anything but everyone in school realized they'd broken up and it was clearly Peter's fault. Ned, of all people, was the nicest to him. 

He went to school, he went to his exercise class - he was really good at those squats - he went to see awful Dr. Nguyen and let Tony lecture him. He was just fucking miserable. 

Tony said, "I'm sorry about your girlfriend."

"Ex-girlfriend," Peter said. 

"Maybe if you keep visibly trying, she'll, you know."

"Talk to me?"

"Hopefully," Tony said. "Sometimes that's the best you get."

"Don't you want to tell me how disappointing and awful I am?"

Tony shrugged and patted his shoulder. "Looks like you've got the self-loathing down. You're a Stark now."

"Great," Peter said.

He told May it was his fault. She'd only met MJ twice but she'd liked her. Peter said he'd lied to MJ and then he came clean. "Why would you lie to her?"

"Because I wanted to go out with her," Peter said. 

May said, "Didn't exactly work out for ya, did it?"

"Hey," Peter said. They were playing Scrabble. "Literally like the fourth person I ever kissed. Wait, ninth. Only the second person I dated, dated."

"Don't lie to people, Peter. Don't lie to me, either."

"Got it," Peter said. "Now." He laid down his letters. "You'd be a great mom. Sorry."

"That's very nice of you to say," May said. 

"I mean it, and I would know because I never had a mother," Peter said. 

But he didn't get to hang out with May all the time. He figured that if he was going to have some kind of freak out at how much his life sucked it would be late at night while he tried to sleep. Instead he was in his exercise class. He was on his back doing bridge lifts while the instructor talked about foundations and what "we have inside." The instructor said "we can rewrite the narrative of our bodies." It felt like something welling up inside him. Like he was lost and useless. Worthless. 

The first person they sent him to kill by himself was a large man. Peter sat on a fire escape and waited for him to come down the alley in the shitty Paraguayan city. Peter whistled a jaunty tune while he watched both entrances. Finally large man showed and Peter verified it was his target. He was supposed to do this one gory, which he wasn't worried about. Large man walked up to him and started swearing at him, telling him to go away. Peter pretended he didn't hear until Large man was close enough. Then he reached out, pulled the guy up by his hair and then slit his throat with his other hand. He dropped the guy once he heard the heart stop. 

Peter waved at the older agent who was making sure Peter did his work. He took off his sweatshirt and threw it on top of the body. Then he took off his gloves and threw them with the knife. It was a little pile of evidence. Peter doused the evidence but not the target's face with acid. 

He still didn't feel bad about it. He didn't. But he felt something. A sinking feeling all over his body. He kept doing his bridge lifts until it was time to move to the next exercise and then class was thankfully over. He walked home and didn't cry. 

He actually fell asleep and woke up when the Aaron phone was ringing. Peter answered and said, "Oh, I'm sorry, I'm out of town and I see, Peter texted me he ate something that disagreed with him. He'll be back in tomorrow. He's had a few absences lately. I'm just in Albany, I'll be home tonight to check on him, don't worry." The secretary said Peter was usually a great kid, Aaron shouldn't worry.

"I know, I know, but even great kids test boundaries," Peter said in his faint German accent. He barely knew what he was saying, but he knew how to stay in persona and get his job done. 

He did feel sick to his stomach. 

Peter fell asleep and woke up again three or four times during the day. It was dark and he just, he went to MJ's place. He knocked on her window like a freak. MJ came to the window with her eyes wide. "What the fuck, Peter," she said. She opened the window and said, "How are you doing that?"

"You know, Hydra, experimentation." He sat on the window ledge and hugged his knees. "MJ, please. I don't know what to do."

He was just being incoherent. She was being kind. She pulled him into her room and hugged him. He felt like he could barely stand. She said, "Peter." 

He was clinging to her, it was ridiculous. But he couldn't exactly stop. She patted his hair. He said sorry a million times. 

Somehow he must have fallen asleep again. He woke up on MJ's floor, a blanket over him and a pillow under his head. He rubbed at his eyes and sat up. Peter said, "MJ? Sorry, sorry for being a dick. I gotta go."

MJ was sitting up in her bed, reading something on her phone. "It's okay. It's okay, honestly. Do you have anyone to take care of you? Anyone?"

"No," Peter said. "My biological father, he mostly just wants to lecture me. I don't think he gives a shit."

MJ said, "You have a biological father? I know everyone does, but I thought you were a lone wolf cub."

"He just found me, sort of, a month or so ago," Peter said. He stood up and folded the blanket. "He doesn't like me very much."

MJ didn't say anything. She finally said, "You really should go. I'll see you at school."

"Thank you," he said. He went out the window. 

When he got home from school, Tony was waiting in his apartment. Peter said, "What now?"

"You skipped school yesterday and you didn't sleep here. What's going on?"

"How are you monitoring me?"

Tony shrugged and looked around the apartment. He said, "You're not a hard nut to crack anymore. Look, I made a decision. You should come live at the tower. With me and Pepper. Supervision would be good for you."

"You don't want me there," Peter said. 

"Let's not take this self-loathing too far," Tony said. "I want your life to be better, for you."

"What about school? My friend, singular in this building? I like my exercise studio," Peter said. 

Tony said, "That one on the corner? There's another one near the Tower. Pepper loves that place. As to your singular friend, you can come here after school, whatever, my driver can pick you up after you finish dinner and Scrabble."

"You've got it all figured out," Peter said. 

He gave in, because what else was he supposed to do? He couldn't dump all his problems and fears on MJ, that was bullshit. Tony had an obligation to care. 

Peter moved into the Tower. He only told May and MJ about his new dad. Apparently somehow Tony or Pepper, probably Pepper, had gotten all of Peter's contacts at Midtown switched to him. Peter was tempted to try to imitate Stark's voice. Spite would only get him so far. Instead he did what he was told, did his talks with Dr. Nguyen. 

He woke up in the Tower in his new room. He didn't bring any of his fake art. He printed out a picture of him and Ned at robotics club, two pictures of the Acadec team, and one picture of May. That was all he cared about. He went to his exercise studio and usually Pepper went with him in the morning. She wore very pastel workout clothes. Then they went back to the Tower and ate whatever breakfast the private chef had made. Sometimes Tony was there, usually he wasn't. 

Sometimes Pepper tried to engage him. He didn't have much to say. Dr. Nguyen told him to try harder. But Peter couldn't think of much to say. 

Then he went to school and had a few moments with Ned, actually learning things. MJ was kind of softening towards him. He occasionally got a few words from her. 

Then he went back to the Tower. He had dinner by himself. 

"I made you a suit," Tony said. 

It was in very bright blue and red with a spider on it. "This isn't me," Peter said. "This isn't even the me you want me to be. Sorry for the bad poetry. Including that last part."

"Have a heart," Tony said. "I'm not giving you some kind of suit you can sneak around in. No more Hydra black, you have to wear Daddy's red."

"For what?"

"You have gifts. You have a responsibility to use them. Avengers could always use your super sticky hands," Tony said with his habitual frown. He really didn't like Peter. 

"You want me on the team?"

"God, no," Tony said. "I want you getting used to thinking of yourself as someone who can do good. And be available for the big emergencies."

Peter sighed and gave in. He put on his ugly spider suit and trained with the rest of the team. He was a perfectly good fighter. He did well with teams, even. He cheerfully accepted his training parameters to use non-lethal force at nearly all times. 

Pretty much the only things he enjoyed during the week were dinners with May, lunch at school when MJ and Ned would talk to him, mostly Ned, and occasionally for a few minutes in his classes. 

One day there was a big enough emergency that Peter had to suit up. Save the wizard. 

Except Peter Quill was a goddamned idiot, and Tony was doing everything and still losing. Thanos lunged and Peter leapt. He was definitely going to die, but maybe Tony wouldn't. Maybe that was his purpose. Die and save his father. 

He did die from a literal punch through his chest. It was unbelievably painful and he didn't think of anyone or see anything. He just died.


	6. Chapter 6

It's awful. Peter is still awake at three am when he goes to the bathroom and throws up. It makes no fucking sense that he can literally remember dying. 

Peter's pretty sure remembering all the murders and not really giving a shit is worse. It is to Peter. 

He falls asleep somehow, naked on top of his sheets. He wakes up again and again. He has a weird dream that includes his actual memory of having sex with MJ. He sits upright and scrambles out of bed. He puts on underwear and gym shorts. He sits on the floor of his bedroom and looks at his bunk bed. 

Logically, someone has rewritten reality and time. Sounds like infinity stones. Someone besides Thanos using them. Peter rubs his forehead because his head hurts so much.

He's worried, suddenly, that whoever rewrote his life just gave him a girlfriend. He goes to throw up again. It's so fucked up that she would just be put in that role, without her consent or even knowing she could choose just because she had been previous timeline Peter's girlfriend. He doesn't even know how he can find out. 

He stares at the grout on the bathtub where it meets the tiles. One time he was watching Unsolved Crimes with MJ in the other apartment, one time in a past that did not happen, he was watching one of MJ's true crimes shows and he was the killer. He was the one that made the impossible shot, back when he was twelve. He crouched on the ceiling and shot from there to one hundred feet away. Impossibly high and no dust marks on the floor that indicated a ladder was there. He didn't even tense up as MJ said, "Probably some enhanced assassin." Peter had smiled at her. Like, ha ha, funny. 

Peter's so worn out he falls asleep on the bathroom floor. May wakes him up with a gentle shake. Peter sobs once and reaches for May. She's the best hugger in every timeline. "You are a good mom," Peter says. He inhales and stops freaking out. 

May says, "Peter, what's wrong?"

"I got hit in the head," he says. "I'll be okay. I'll be fine."

"You don't sound very convincing, bud," she says. "We can talk about it."

"No, it's not like that," Peter says. He pushes himself up to standing. He feels the counter crack a little. "Sorry," he says. "I think I just need to, um, just give me a day off from school and I'll figure it out."

"Really?" May hugs him again. She rubs his back and he closes his eyes. 

"Just a day," Peter says. 

He throws on a random t-shirt and sneakers and his headphones and just runs. He runs and runs. Until Heimdall steps out right in front of him. 

Heimdall is dressed down for the outer outer suburbs of Queens but he's still an unbelievably attractive tall man in expensive looking sunglasses. Peter stops right in front of him and notices the people around them, all ten or so, are observing Heimdall. It's some kind of second nature to notice everything, assess exits and threats now, and it feels weird. 

Peter says, "Hey. Hey, can you, do you know what's happened to me?"

Heimdall nods and gestures for Peter to come inside a coffee shop. Peter orders something that's more sugar and syrup than coffee.

Peter says, "I remember dying."

"As do I," Heimdall says. "I died only a few days before you. Thor found Thanos after Thanos had finally assembled all six infinity stones. Thor killed him. Then he put on the glove himself. Stark was there, and the Wizard Strange and you. Thor had lost his brother and me to Thanos. Vision, too, had been destroyed and your father was there with your dead body."

"Thor brought us back to life," Peter says.

"He used the stones to rewrite the past to save you, me, other people who ended up spared, I expect. Others who died, as well."

"But what about, wait, not an alternate universe, a whole new reality."

"The stones could have done so much more, rewriting parts of the past was a moment's task for them," Heimdall says.

"But. When did this happen? I just worry, like my girlfriend. I don't know if she even wants to be with me," Peter says, quietly.

Heimdall looks surprised. "Don't be concerned. Time has been changed, the events that happened would happen in the future. But this new reality started four months ago."

"Before MJ and I started going out, but." Peter says, "Was it written out? She was my girlfriend before and now she is now, too."

"You're very concerned about this," Heimdall says. 

"I hate to think about it, I can take the rest of this, I think. Not exactly, all the killing is a lot. But nobody should be forced into something or drafted or whatever." Peter sips his drink. "But what happened to all the people I, that I killed?"

"The people who were murdered were killed by someone else. Most likely. This started four months ago."

"And we started going out three months before," Peter says. "Okay, okay. So what happens now?"

"The worlds spin on. It can't be rewritten. You have your better life, I am alive. Loki is alive. Thanos is dead. The stones are scattered. No one knows your past."

"I do, I know," Peter says. "Because of Wanda?"

"Yes," Heimdall says. "You should head home, Peter." Then he leaves, regally and magnificently. Asgardians are all so hot. 

Everything settles by the time Peter's Uber brings him home. It sort of settles. He has the memories, both realities is the way Heimdall put it. They're not currently overwhelming. 

It's just, he has memories of having sex and sex with his current girlfriend but he hasn't done that. He also never got to third ish base with Javier at Nationals. Thinking about Javier is a really nice memory. Much better than thinking about MJ which feels like a violation. Plus, he apparently made out with a bunch of people, too. 

It's not a new personality taking root in his head, he's not having conversations with his other self. It's a little harrowing, actually. 

"Smarter than you," Peter mumbles to himself. If he was having conversations with his previous self he would say one of them thought of webfluid and one didn't. Probably points to the superiority of independent thinking and not being trained just to kill. 

But he's really not having conversations with himself or his previous reality self because there's no response. On the other hand, his previous self wasn't that impressed with his Hydra childhood. He was miserable and basically having a breakdown, understandably. 

Peter shouldn't be smug, he's not great. 

He falls asleep, has weird dreams he barely remembers, and wakes up. He's confused and lost for the first five seconds. He's in a bunk bed. He hates bunks bed so much. Peter sits up and rubs his face. 

When May gets home, Peter is making dinner. She says, "Oh, wonderful." She's a hugger. Peter loves it. He loves his family. He touches the counter and thinks about his previous misery. He decides right then he'll never tell May, not ever. He can make educated guesses about how the stones worked, since his DNA is unchanged, then probably Richard Parker and Ben and May ended up as his family because of Peter's prior proximity. Easiest and most efficient use of even infinite power is to redo reality with the least changes. May was already there. 

But he loves this family. It's a lot to explain to her and just because Peter likes it, that doesn't mean May won't be upset or worse. That's being paranoid. He knows he's being paranoid. 

He doesn't explain why he was being weird. They eat dinner, Peter does his homework, texts with MJ about anything he missed. By ten p.m, he just naturally puts on his suit and sneaks out to the roof. Karen says Hello and Peter nearly jumps. He blinks and says, "Hey, Karen."

He literally practices with his webs since he's worried about his muscle memory. 

Peter swings through Queens and down and back. He even talks to himself, talks through the construction of patrolling and saving people and how it's supposed to work. Karen doesn't say anything for the first few minutes and then takes over his instruction. She learns. He sees a fistfight among five or six drunks spilling out of a bar and at least two of them have guns. He jumps down and lands on one guy's shoulders. "Hi," he says. He's done in five seconds and everyone is disarmed. 

Peter leaves the knives shoved into the wall, and he takes the guns, perching aboves the knives. "Well, this one is shit. You'll never shoot straight with this." He breaks the trigger mechanism and hangs it on a knife. "This one is nice and too well-used. Gonna leave a little note so the cops can check the ballistics. There's probably a few who aren't shit at their job." He does so. Gun three is barely a gun. He breaks that one, too and leaves it on the knives. 

"Webs," he says to remind himself and swings away. 

Karen says, "Peter, why do you now know so much about guns?"

"Yeah, that's a new skill," Peter says. "In a previous life, sort of, which I now remember. I was very familiar with guns."

"How do you remember a previous life?"

"Magic," Peter says.

Peter finds his previous life skills really helpful in patrol. He's much more efficient. He does his best to make sure he doesn't kill or permanently wound anyone in his next three fights. "This is an integration I can get behind," he says, laughing. 

"Your magic previous life skills are definitely helping you tonight. Would you like to see statistics about that?"

"I sure would," Peter says and he reads them in his heads up display. Then he helps a few people with heavy bags. His previous life experience is no help with that. 

He sneaks home more efficiently, too. 

He has some awesome nightmares. He dies over and over again in a different way each time. He wipes his face with his shirt. Peter gets on his computer and stares at the search bar. He goes to the Hydra files Black Widow released back in the day. He remembers all the codes. The whole section detailing the baby experiments is different. It's gone. No agent sent to seduce anyone. But the codes are the same.

The agent who was his mother must have been Mary Fitzpatrick. He searches for her in the Hydra files. She was, apparently she had been SHIELD and super briefly recruited for Hydra before turning them down. She was retired from SHIELD by the time she had her little fling with Tony. He's tense, wound up. He shakes his head and relaxes, muscle by muscle. He learned that from Hydra, he realizes. It's just fucked up. 

No babies, no experimentation. He does another search, and everyone he killed when he was with Hydra is still dead. But not the same ways. It's an easy comparison. Every death that involved him using his powers, his strength or stickiness, happened another way. They died conventionally. Like Hydra sent an ordinary agent to kill them without Peter being available. 

Peter starts doing cursory searches for the records of the other killings he did. Those happened, too. The ones Peter can find. 

All those dead people. All of them. It's about, it's about efficiency, he thinks, he's verified that. So really, all those people died because Peter killed them the first time around. It's still his fault. 

If Thor had let Tony do the rebuild, Tony would have taken care of it. Tony understands the need to be meticulous. He understands the calculations of fault and guilt and responsibility. 

He barely falls asleep again. 

It's much easier to decide to tell Ned and MJ. But he does it separately. Ned first after school, in Ned's house. Ned says it's cool, but also horrible. They start to talk about the multiverse and how the infinity stones had to work. Peter says, "Also, I was a very bad person."

"No, you were raised to be a very bad person and eventually, you started working to be better. You died, you died man, wow, but you died before you could finish," Ned says. 

"I wasn't changing," Peter says. "I remember."

"You said you were getting therapy and you were super depressed. That's a good step," Ned says. "That's changing, that's growth." He makes the hand gesture like the meme. 

"Okay, that was actually me, I know my own head, I wasn't changing. I was just depressed."

Ned says, "You sacrificed yourself. That's growth."

"Come on, it's a cheap gesture. You throw yourself at the obstacle, you don't have to do anything after," Peter says. 

"That's pretty bleak, Peter. Maybe you just hate Previous Peter," Ned says. 

"Previous Peter didn't think much of you," Peter says.

"You're picking a weird thing to be defensive about."

"I know, sorry. Sorry, you're right. I don't like the guy. I don't like previous me," Peter says. 

Ned stares at him for a moment. He says, "You should work on that."

It's harder to tell MJ. She says, "Your posture keeps changing, like, you're shifting. The way you hold yourself. Like I'm talking to two different Peters."

"We both like you?"

"Weak," MJ says. "Are you sure about that whole thing with my free will?"

"I think so. I mean, as much as I can be sure. But obviously just being with me the first time around, as it were, in my orbit. Before four months ago, that's the reality created by the Infinity stones so I guess it actually happened, but did it?"

MJ nods. "It's a pickle. But I guess I liked you before. I don't suppose you knew me well enough to ask about my family and if any of that's changed? I mean, contract killer Peter."

Peter says, "Hey, I cared. He cared. No changes."

"Did he stalk me or did he, like, actually talk to me?"

Peter shrugs. "I think, um." He searches his memory which is almost painful. "He talked to you. I talked to you."

"You're not him," MJ says. "The only thing you have in common is identical DNA."

"And I have all his, I remember everything, MJ."

She looks away and then back at him. "I don't want to think of you as a killer."

"See, you're the same," Peter says. He pats her hand. "Also, I remember everything so it's weird and also we had sex, so. It's like I've seen you naked which I don't like - that you didn't choose that."

"It's a fucked up situation," MJ says. She shakes her head like she's clearing her mind. She says, "We should have sex, then." She pulls off her shirt and undoes her bra. Peter stares. She pushes down her skirt and then her underwear. She crosses her legs across from him. She sits up straight, like she's bracing herself. "Right?"

"Oh," Peter says. "You're beautiful." 

"You're wearing a lot of clothes," MJ says. "I'm not."

"Right, right," he says. Then they're both naked. MJ leans forward and kisses him. He loves her and he remembers clinging to her. She's pressing him down and back on the bed. They're not quite aligned right, he feels like everything is happening twice, between what he remembers and what he remembers. 

He runs his hands down her sides and just looks at her. "I don't think I can, not, not today, okay?"

"Have sex?" She presses down on his chest. 

"Yeah, we can do other things, but my brain isn't right. I don't know how to describe it," Peter says. She can obviously tell it's not about not wanting to be with her. 

"You don't need a reason," she says. She kind of rolls off him but pulls him with her so they're facing each other. "We're not going to do anything we both don't want to, duh."

"We can definitely do other things," he says. He gets on his back and pulls her hips forward. 

"Oh, so sex," she says, gasping as he settles her on his face. "Just not, uh, the intercourse sex."


	7. Chapter 7

Peter barely sleeps. Five straight nights of twisted memories and awful dreams. When he wakes up, he keeps looking up people he killed. They're all still dead. He starts looking for the Hydra agents he remembers. Some of them are already dead. Some aren't, and he wonders if he can actually accuse them of anything. 

He goes patrolling and Karen is still impressed with his new efficiency. 

Tony doesn't call and Peter only notices around day five. He notices because Tony texts, a simple call me message. Peter calls and Tony says, "Let's talk in person."

Peter goes to the compound. He even brings his bag like he's staying the night. He's supposed to, he's already missed one night. They negotiated a whole schedule, Peter and Tony and May. Peter gets there and FRIDAY sends him to Tony's lab. 

Tony says, "Wanda hit you, too, right? You remember."

"I'm starting to hate that word," Peter says. "Did you talk to Heimdall, too?"

"Didn't need to," Tony says. "I was there when Thor decided to make everything better. As much as I was lucid when I was holding your dead body with the hole punched in it."

"Not dead now," Peter says. "But I do, I can recall that happening."

"That sounds horrible," Tony says. "Should we, I was going to suggest therapy and I have no idea who you should talk to."

Peter shrugs and sits down. "Did a lot change in your life?"

"Almost nothing until the part where I met you. Then it's all different as I'm sure you know," Tony says. "How are you? I can't imagine, do you really have all that in your head?"

"All of it," Peter says. "I guess I should say thank you, thank you for Thor giving me this better life. It's a hundred percent better. It's weird I'm dating the same person, but we talked that out."

Tony smiles. "Of course you did." Then he leans back in his chair. "It's a lot. I'm sorry I didn't call sooner. I told Pepper and Rhodey, but only this morning. Had to decide not to get really drunk for three days."

"That leaves a day," Peter says.

Tony gestures around the lab. "I was here. Here." He stops smiling. "It occurs to me that you probably remember - that you will have a narrative in your head that I didn't love you, or I was disappointed with you. You don't have to believe me, but it's not true. I was trying to cope with a lot of information and I did it badly."

"Oh," Peter says. "I can see that. But I, me, the Peter sitting here, I understand all that. Ned says I hate Previous Peter, so I very much get it."

"It seems pretty pointless to hate someone who was so lost. And miserable," Tony says. He leans forward and starts fiddling with the cuffs of his sweatshirt. "I feel like that must be a lot in your head."

"Yeah, it's fucked up," Peter says. "Right now I'm sort of, I go to school and it's like I see everything twice. Sometimes. Sometimes it's just normal. I feel like, MJ says it's like she's talking to two Peters. The whole way I hold myself changes."

"That's happened while you're sitting here," Tony says. "Previous double P is a lot less open."

"I don't feel that," Peter says. Maybe he should watch himself in a mirror. "I don't feel like there's two of us. Sometimes there's two of us, but not really. I'm not switching personalities. I'm not talking to myself. Or Previous double P."

"He would have hated that nickname. He did not have a sense of the whimsical," Tony says.

"I didn't," Peter says. "Not helpful for the killing and robbing and spying. I don't know why I keep insisting on this, that it's not a he, I'm me, I did that."

Tony frowns more. Somehow he manages to seem even more angry. He says, "You didn't do that. You didn't kill anyone."

"All those people are still dead because of me," Peter says.

"No," Tony says. "They're dead this time around because of Hydra, just like last time."

"No," Peter says forcefully. "All of this," he claps his chest. "All of it, May, and MJ, and those dead people, that happened because of what happened the first time. Because of what I did."

Tony stands up so he can stand over Peter. "That's a really shitty way to think. I wouldn't have said this to you last time around but it's true some of it really is about how you were raised. You didn't have much of a chance to develop a conscience or empathy. And you did."

"You shouldn't have said that to me, you shouldn't let me off the hook," Peter says. He even stands up. 

Tony hugs him very hard. He says, "We're not doing this, Peter. We're not. You're not responsible for those deaths. You're just not."

Peter doesn't agree but he stays quiet. He wants Tony to be happy. 

In the morning, it's time to train with Cap again. Peter steps on the mat with a smile. "Did Tony tell you?"

"No," Cap says. 

"You didn't even ask what," Peter says.

"Tony hasn't talked to anyone for five or six days," Cap says. "What?"

"Turns out," Peter says. "It turns out Thor used these Infinity stones to rewrite reality, four months ago, and then Wanda hit me and Tony with magic and we both remember the previous reality. We remember both. And in the past, I was very good at this." 

"I believe it," Cap says. "So you're excited to spar?"

"Or we could actually fight," Peter says. "You believed really quickly."

"I can see your posture," Cap says. "Okay." He steps into a fighting stance. 

Peter takes a deep breath and then they start. It's actually awesome, Peter lets his mind go blank. He knows how to do this. He knew how to do this. And he's fought Steve before in both realities. He makes sure to keep close, he can use his smaller size to his advantage. When he dodges out, he goes as far as possible and then bounces back. Steve is very very good at this. Peter still scores some points. He even manages to get Steve in a chokehold. 

Steve gasps out, "I can get out of this, if we're breaking bones."

"You can try," Peter says, pulling harder. Thick necked bastard kicks back and even though Peter senses and dodges, Steve breaks Peter's ankle and ends up on top of him. Peter rolls away and springs up on one foot. "I can still take you."

Steve smiles back at him and spits. Peter lunges and they go back at it. Peter gets in a good strike and breaks Steve's arm. 

Tony comes in and says, "We're done, both of you. Everybody's bleeding and we're all equal."

"I could have taken you," Peter says. "We should do this again." He's leaning on Steve as they hobble to the medbay. 

"Maybe you take me, maybe I beat you, again," Steve says, laughing. 

Peter's actually feeling the pain now and it's excruciating. It's been forever since he's broken his ankle. They're both laying on their respective beds as everything gets set. At least Steve is also wincing. 

Tony grimaces. "Great, sure."

The next morning, it's basically just a sprain. Peter easily ignores it. 

Peter says to Tony, "What about Wanda?"

"She's still recuperating from the Pipettes trying to feed on her power." 

"I believe she's recovered," Vision says as he walks through the walls into the room. "But like you and Mr. Stark, I believe she's also reconciling this timeline with the previous reality."

An alarm goes off before Peter can ask what's so different for Wanda. Tony taps his glasses and then the video fills the space between them. More Pipettes. Four ships this time and two more ships that look unfamiliar. Tony says, "Why come back?"

"They are not coming back," Vision says. "I believe from the information Heimdall has conveyed to me that these aliens have sent more than one wave to the Earth. They are searching for the Infinity Stones."

"They're coming for you," Tony says, looking at Vision.

"Yes, and Dr. Strange. They will not be the last," Vision says.

"How do we stop that," Peter says. "We can't be everyone's favorite stop on the way to taking over the galaxy."

"Someone call Thor, he created this problem," Tony says, muttering. 

Peter drops onto one of the non-Pipette small ships. It's not even warm. Peter claws at the ship's hull and starts to break it apart little bit by little bit. He also tries to figure out how the ship is even flying, what the power source is. He scrapes off the little pieces and impales them back in the hull again. He isn't making much progress and then he's making a lot. The ship doesn't have weapons on the top where Peter is. Definitely a design flaw. Peter's now clawing and breaking a ton of shit. There's acrid fumes coming up and unhappy sounds inside. Peter assumes they're unhappy. He jumps, debates and decides on his parachute. 

He's floating down slowly when Thor shows up. Lightning fries all the ships and they all start plummeting. Peter's debating his next step when Rhodey swoops in under him and carries him to safety. "Nice to see you," Peter says. "Where you been?"

"Nice to see you too, kiddo," Rhodey says. 

"I'm not a kid," Peter says. "I'm a teen."

Then they gather. Tony spends a solid ten minutes grilling Rhodey about how the man only shows up for alien invasions and not for Asgardian parties or other real work. "Yeah, that's the case," Rhodey says. 

As Tony knows, Rhodey was in Wakanda with the Black Widow. But Tony needs a break, it's been a rough week. 

It's weird seeing Thor. He should say thank you, he should. Thanks for the new life. Thanks for the good life, thanks for being alive. 

Thor promises to take care of all the aliens, and makes a few vows to protect the Earth and all her people. After that, Thor claps his hand on Peter's shoulder and says, "Young Spider."

"Thor," Peter says, unable to stop smiling in sheer admiration. No one should be that attractive up close. "Thank you, by the way."

"Of course," Thor says. "Of course."

Peter doesn't even know if Thor knows what he's referring to. Still, Peter said it. He's covered. 

Aliens stop coming. Peter starts getting more sleep. 

He realizes he hates his bunk bed. He doesn't want to. He was fine with it. Peter feels like he's giving in, surrendering himself to the previous, to his previous self. Peter tries to sleep and he wants to roll around but there's no space. He didn't used to need the space. 

He finally talks to May even though he doesn't get to the heart of the real issue. May says, "It makes sense, I bet you don't have a twin at Tony's."

"No, no," Peter says. "It's not about that. It's not. I'm only there once a week, you know. Everything's too big there, I don't need a room that big or a shower that big. I'm just, you know, it feels like a kid's bed. I'm a teen."

May smiles. "It's okay, I'm not taking it personally. We can get you a new bed."

"You can make Tony pay," Peter says. He smiles. "Just, like, don't go overboard, I don't need a California King. Or some elaborate loft structure."

He gets a simple queen bed and he rearranges his room around it. He does feel a little hemmed in, sometimes. Like he's used to living alone. Peter is, he used to live alone. He used to live at the Tower with Tony and Pepper. Pepper was sweet to him, she's nicer now. He's nicer now. 

He and MJ have sex for the first time on his new bed. There's a moment when she's shivering, just a breath, even though he can feel the heat of her under his hands. She doesn't say anything. She's wonderful. 

Peter is now fluent in Spanish (as they speak it in Mexico City), even though he's only in fourth year Spanish at Midtown. He's also fluent in Bulgarian, Russian, German and French. He's got a smattering of Arabic, Japanese, Urdu, Chinese and Korean. He feels like he's cheating when he's doing his Spanish homework but he doesn't know how to explain he became fluent overnight. His teacher compliments his Spanish, she asks where he picked up the Mexican accent? He claims someone moved into the apartment across the hall. "We talk," he says, after class. 

"That's great," she says. "What's his name?"

Peter scrambles and says, "Eduardo. He's very nice." He's very glad he doesn't live anywhere near Eduardo as far as he knows. Eduardo was a horrible person who knew nothing about proper gun upkeep. Peter had some weird standards back in the day, apparently, judging by that unbidden thought. 

He decides next year he'll drop Spanish and then he can test into higher level classes in college. That's not cheating somehow. 

Ned isn't a huge fan of the missing top bunk, but he's always impressed with Peter's rooms at Tony's. "Avengers compound," Ned says like he's talking to actual Han Solo. "Peter, you should appreciate this more."

"I don't agree," Peter says. "I almost had my arm cut off last week fighting that guy in the Bronx but I'm fine. I appreciate that."

"You're totally bragging," Ned says, grinning. 

"I am totally bragging," Peter says. "Come on, even the Falcon was impressed with how I got out of that one."

Ned says, "Previous Peter helping you out."

"We're not calling it that," Peter says. 

"Memory shapes our personality," Ned says. "I've done the reading here."

Peter says, "I'm living it here, come on. I recall what happened, both ways, but I view both through me, me that has a loving family and a sense of humor. My personality shapes my memories, me. I mean, one time when MJ was saying something about not being on her knees in suburban Queens house parties, I didn't say I was usually the one on my knees. That was true and funny. Loser."

"We always get so meta," Ned says, sighing. "Who is the self?"

"I don't know," Peter says, rubbing his forehead.

He's barely paying attention one afternoon when he's studying at MJ's but he looks up and on the TV is a picture of Amy. He presses his lips together. It's Forensic Files. "What's this case?"

MJ looks at him. She says, "She was murdered. The usual. Turns out it was her uncle." She waits for him to explain.

He's sad and his stomach is full of ice. He says, "I knew her. In the other, other me knew her. She was sweet. If she was lying, she pulled it off."

"Was she murdered by her uncle in the other timeline?"

"I don't know," Peter says. He never checked. He didn't look for Mia, either. He hasn't looked for either woman in this timeline. He needs and needed some things to be unexplored. 

Sometimes Peter goes searching. He listened to everyone about how nothing is his fault, nothing was ever his fault, but he knows some people and they were Hydra last time, they're probably Hydra this time. But he doesn't know for sure. He can't know for sure. Unless he sits outside their houses and checks himself that they're evil. 

In another life, Mr. Molls of Brooklyn sent baby Peter on four different missions. He survived Hydra and almost worked with Peter again in Bulgaria. Peter was concerned that Molls would figure out Peter didn't have a handler, and dodged away. So in this lifetime, Peter doesn't know for sure, but he needs to know. 

Peter has to juggle a lot of things, but he makes time for this. And the five other people in the New York City area he's watching. 

Peter shifts to the roof across from the Molls apartment. "Hey, Mr. Winter Soldier, how are you?"

"You just found me now," the man says. 

"I only got here a few minutes ago," Peter lies. 

"Fifteen minutes," Mr. Winter Soldier says. 

"In, I used to be better at this," Peter says. 

"Why?" 

Peter says, "It's complicated." He really doesn't want to go through everything again. "Why are you here? Is this guy definitely Hydra?"

"Probably," Mr. Winter Soldier says. "I'm checking."

Twenty minutes later of silence, Peter says, "In a previous reality, I was, like, raised by Hydra and died. In that reality, he was absolutely Hydra, like, sending child soldiers out to kill people Hydra. I don't know what he's like in this reality."

Mr. Winter Soldier nods. "Makes sense."

"It does?"

Mr. Winter Soldier nods again. "Someone's got a gun."

Peter doesn't. Mr. Molls has pulled out a rifle. It's not a nice one. A dog is barking. "Is he going to shoot that dog? That's so Hydra."

Peter aims his webshooter. Mr. Winter Soldier taps his shoulder. He says, "Let's see what he does."

Molls frowns and then puts the rifle away. "Oh, come on," Peter says. "Do something evil."

"He's ex-Hydra for sure. I saw him once. But people have been saying maybe we let the retired ones be retired. People can change, right?" He has a very flat tone. 

"That's what I thought I was doing," Peter says. "In the other reality. Wasn't good enough for the Avengers. I guess. Sort of? They didn't arrest me. I assumed that was because my birth father was Tony Stark. He still is."

"Yeah," he says. There's another very long silence. "He didn't kill that dog. One point for Molls tonight."

Five minutes later, Mr. Winter Soldier says, "Are you going to ask me for advice? Probably a lot to remember."

"Well, you were brainwashed. You had your choices taken from you," Peter says. "I could argue I was brainwashed by being raised that way, but it's different. Plus, do you really want to talk about Hydra and moral responsibility?"

"No," he says. 

They watch a little longer. Karen quietly reminds Peter of his many obligations and he says goodbye. 

Peter finally sits in front of a mirror to see what everyone's talking about. Except he's just staring at himself and he just wants to get a haircut. Maybe he's getting better, maybe he's totally integrated now. Probably not. 

So he calls Ned and perches on the chair. There's a sound from the other room and then he sees it. He sits back down in the chair and he tells Ned he'll call him back. 

Peter goes back to staring. He drifts off in his head. People are dead and he made it happen and he didn't care. He sat in one on one classes and was told most people were sheep and needed guidance from the better ones. He was a better one. Sometimes herds needed to be culled. The world needed to be perfected. Peter was serving a purpose. 

It was fun. That was fun. In the mirror he has a disturbingly feral smile. It was fun to break people and be the strongest and be fast and sticky. He was absolutely better than everyone around him. He was the smartest person he ever met. Until he met Tony Stark. That was his father, so, really, he was still better. 

It runs through all his memories. If he watches himself think and recall, he can see his shoulders relax and he sits up straighter and even the way he holds his mouth is different. Maybe he's more attractive this way. That's not a good thought. 

It's Sunday and May is home. Peter gets up and says, "May? I just. Can we talk?"

She has a very serious face, he bets he does, too. He says, "There's a thing, I learned something a few months ago and I didn't want to tell you."

She sits down and waits for him to tell her. He recites the story all over again. 

May nods a few times. She says, "This is a crazy world."

Peter nods. 

May says, "You didn't tell me because you thought I'd be mad at you."

"Not exactly mad," Peter says. "I feel like, I dunno. I spend a lot of time thinking things are my responsibility. Like, the choices I made the first time around dictated what was made to happen the first time. But maybe that's just me thinking I'm better than everyone and other people's choices are somehow my fault. I don't know."

"Well," May says. "This time around you have me." She stands up and hugs him. "What a headache you must have."

"Had have," he mumbles into her shoulder. 

"In this case, Thor is the one who's better than everyone," May says. 

Peter says, "He kinda is."

May says, "You're asking the questions. You keep asking them. That's how you are actually better than the real bad guys. It's the people who don't question themselves, those are the ones to worry about."

"They don't change," Peter says. "People can change, right?"

"Of course they can," she says. She lets go of him and says, "In the other reality, you really killed the guy who killed Ben?"

"With a tree branch," Peter says, smiling.

"Don't smile like that," May says. "But I like that part."


End file.
